The latest controversy involves a protest at the October 10th Homecoming Parade. Click is seen with student protesters blocking the Homecoming Parade route. When officers attempt to direct the group back onto the sidewalk (a manifestly reasonable act), Click intervenes and tells the officers to “get your hands off the children” and then uses a profanity when an officer grabs her shoulder to direct her back onto the sidewalk.

The response from the Administration was fast and furious. Interim Chancellor Hank Foley stated that “Her conduct and behavior are appalling, and I am not only disappointed, I am angry that a member of our faculty acted this way . . . Her actions caught on camera last October are just another example of a pattern of misconduct by Dr. Click – most notably her assault on one of our students while seeking ‘muscle’ during a highly volatile situation on Carnahan Quadrangle in November.”

Click told media that she has made mistakes but “My mistake is just one part of who I am. I want to stay at MU. I deserve to be heard and I deserve to be treated fairly, and I’m going to fight to be treated fairly. I think it’s everybody’s right to be treated fairly.” She certainly should be treated fairly but her actions are inimical to the role of an academic, particularly a faculty member in the communications department (in the matter of the original controversy of obstructing a journalist). In the latest video, she is resisting and being abusive toward police who are trying to move students safely to the sidewalk. Click clearly should have free speech protections for her own advocacy, but these actions go beyond the pale for an academic on campus.

41 thoughts on “Controversial Missouri Communications Professor Captured In New Videotape Obstructing and Swearing At Police”

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Students at the University of Missouri graduate with debt and without a job, yet the university pays the salary of a lunatic. A large part of the student debt/unemployment problem would be solved if universities (1) taught something marketable and (2) cut their bloated budgets.

As a parent who has paid a fair amount of college tuition, I can most assuredly say that much of what students pay to support universities is unrelated to educational purposes. Students (and their parents) would not mind paying for an education, if what they are paying for is an education, not subsidizing nut cases like Dr. Clark under the guise of academic freedom. We can throw in money wasted for athletic facilities and for a plethora of useless deans, assistant deans, and associate deans whose only qualifications appear to be that they graduated from an American university and cannot find a job elsewhere.

Can anyone imagine what would happen if a person engaged in any other profession acted like Dr. Clark. An accountant? A banker? An undertaker? Why is she enabled when she acts like a fool?

Pretty low grade as far as I’m concerned–flapping her big mouth and ultimately, if stubbornly, conforming to the officer’s commands. I couldn’t care less about the vocabulary–it isn’t what I’d choose to use to a cop, but then again my default posture with law enforcement is fear. As I told my children: to be safe, always interact with officers knowing full well that they can kill you without fear of repercussions. The woman in question is certainly foolish and juvenile, but no, I don’t think that the conduct is necessarily improper for an academic. Intellectuals should be passionate and headstrong–too often we hear criticism of teachers for “indoctrinating” students, but the nature of higher education SHOULD be about the presentation of opinions and ideas, some of which may be challenging, even offensive to our various sensibilities. The kids with whom she is protesting almost certainly know what this woman is about–we’ve all met someone like her, I’ll wager, the foaming-mouthed extremist clothed in moral certainty, and through her unpalatable example will learn how to better function in a world filled with difficult and annoying people.

It is worth noting that this interaction with the police, who handled the situation wonderfully, is much different than Ms. Clicks overt attempt at intimidate the journalist. That was wrong, and worthy of censure, at the very least. But this instant would never be news if she hadn’t already marked herself as an easy headline. Also, kudos to the student protesters who, having made their point, withdraw to the curb as directed.

The author brought up the phrase, beyond the pale. I like to liken it to Sarah Palin. I know that its a stretch but what the heck. If course Sarah Palin would not do what the Click person is doing. But back when she was running for office there were some of us who invoked the phrase. Some say that if Trump gets the nomination that Sarah Palin will get the VP place on the ballot.

What is beyond the pale in the whole story about the Mizzou teacher is her ugly photos. We have been subject to first one and now another. She could be fired for just looking like that.

I think that blocking the Oscar Meyer Wiener Mobile could be construed as a serious enough offense an affront to some right of expression, rooted somewhere in the sacred texts. If this were a monarchy she could have screwed up a ceremony, perhaps a marriage made in heaven between the heir to the hot dog dynasty and the daughter of the mustard king.

If Dr. Click blocks vehicular & pedestrian traffic, or unlawfully obstructs a lawful assembly (the parade) she faces arrest for disorderly conduct. That’s the way it works. Being angry and making a fool out of herself does not change this. I wouldn’t want a son or daughter of mine to be a student in one of her classes. She comes across as being too unstable to be in such a position.

If one was so unfortunate to have her as an instructor, it is most prudent to only write what she wants or else she will bring in “some muscle”.

Texan Polygynist
I’m sure MU wouldn’t take her in again because she does not represent academic learning, critical thinking, and teaches real communications as opposed to activism.

Universities know who they are hiring. Click and the thousands of others just like her aren’t hired despite their lunatic politics, they’re hired because of their lunatic politics. Any time there’s a campus fracas look at the CVs of the faculty most involved.

The best concise writing on the subject is KC Johnson at his former blog Durham in Wonderland. He followed dozens of activist faculty and showed not only their lack of scholarship but also a complete lack of integrity. Not one ever paid a price of any kind, while many were promoted both internally and externally. In order for this to occur university authorities must believe their activism outweighs their undeniably appalling behavior.

The only reason MU is talking tough about Click is because she went viral and they know they need to keep their actions from the public. But Click is exactly the kind of person MU and almost all other universities in America want.

“In a statement issued through Status [her PR firm], Click apologized for cursing at the officer and said she was attempting to protect the students from possibly being hit with pepper spray. “The officer’s physical force was unexpected, and I spoke in a way I now regret,” she said in a statement.

“He pushed me,” Click said in an interview. “He pushed many of the students.”
~ Columbia Daily Tribune (2/16/2016)
***********************************

The only pushing in that video is Melissa Click pushing a line that no one will believe who sees it. She jumped in front of the kids and into the police officer. Interestingly enough, that’s exactly what her UM cohort, Jana Basler,did in confronting the UM student journalist, Tim Tai. Pushing into his body with her gang and advancing forward all the while screaming “back off,” Bassler then claimed Tai was the aggressor for resisting the human wave. Sounds like a playbook move right out of Abbie Hoffman’s book, “Revolution for the Hell of It.” By the way, her exact comment to the officer was “Get Your F**king Hand Off Me!”

That woman must be screaming for attention.. Attention that warrants a man and some deep-rooted frustrations that needs to be expended like energy quickly jettisoning itself out of a tightly-controlled container.

This does not bode well for Click, if she wants to seek a tenure as a Communications professor. If she wants to become an activist, let her. I’m sure MU wouldn’t take her in again because she does not represent academic learning, critical thinking, and teaches real communications as opposed to activism.

We’re going to see more of this in the future. More academic blowhards, who think they have it quickly made, only to realize that they have given people grief and frustration with their stupidity. “Useful idiots” as they’re called…

I wish for us to return to a golden age of literacy, critical thinking, and common sense and abstaining from behaviors like these. Despite the fact she’s free to speak her mind, her behavior must be warning men to stay away!

The Pale of Settlement (Russian: Черта́ осе́длости, chertá osédlosti, Yiddish: דער תּחום-המושבֿ‎, der tkhum-ha-moyshəv, Hebrew: תְּחוּם הַמּוֹשָב‎, tcḥùm ha-mosháv) was a western region of Imperial Russia, in which permanent residency by Jews was allowed and beyond which Jewish permanent residency was generally prohibited. It extended from the eastern pale, or demarcation line, to the western Russian border with the Kingdom of Prussia (later the German Empire) and with Austria-Hungary.

The archaic English term pale is derived from the Latin word palus, a stake, extended to mean the area enclosed by a fence or boundary.

Jews were, however, excluded from residency at a number of cities within the Pale, while a limited number of categories of Jews were allowed to live outside it.